How To Become A Freelance Writer: Directions For College Students

Over the last few months, when I started to note it, I have been seeing more and more college-going students interested in doing some kind of part-time jobs to can earn money to pay their fees or to fund their expenses. But just think, how hard it would be to attend classes from morning, and then after college do this part time job, then complete their homework. It is not over yet. As the famous proverb says, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” You need to allocate time for your family/ friends/any kind of social or entertainment activity. Ah, that would be way too tiring! Even if you strain and keep working like this if not today in the near future you will hurt your health. Remember one thing in life, health is more important than money. If I were in that place, I would have quit that part-time job.

You want to earn money. But what else can you do other than working in a store or some other place that demands ‘xx’ hours of work per week, which could lead to stress and in turn drain your health?

Just answer these questions: Do you know English? Can you write well without grammatical errors and pen down your flow of thoughts such that it makes good sense when people read them?

If yes, then you got it, you can do freelancing. The best way for a college student to make money is by freelancing. You can work:

any time of the day that you feel you can

any amount of hours that you feel comfortable

with any client, and the best part is that you can stop working with a specific client if you do not like him/her
there will be no limit to your earnings

Once you have decided to start off your career as a part-time or full-time freelance writer, you need to sign up with any of the sites that allow you to work. This is Gen Y era. There are so many sites that allow you to do such work. There are freelancing sites, where you can showcase any kind of talent that you have, or there are sites that allow you to showcase only writing talent. To name a few: Elance, oDesk (now UpWork), Fiverr, iWriters, Text broker, etc.

Once you have signed up, you need to set up your profile, add your skills, add key terms like ‘article writer’, ‘copywriter’, ‘article rewriter’, ‘content writer’ etc., and also verify your account. Mind you, this is a very tough world. Wherever you may go, you are bound to compete with many people, and the same is the case here. There will always be more supply than demand. When someone posts work, there will be many people applying for that job. So how can you complete with them as a novice?

For that, you need to stand out from the crowd, which you can do by showcasing your previous works and giving tests (certain sites offer free testing services to show your client how talented you are in a particular field). Make use of them. Then while you apply for a job, give them a good reason to hire you. You may start it by giving lower bids initially. Once you get the job, complete it within the stipulated time with high quality, meaning without any errors. Try getting good feedbacks, as this will help you get better jobs in the future, resulting in more demand for you. But always remember quality matters a lot. One thing that you can do to maintain that quality is, first to do all the research, complete the writing part, and then before you submit the work to the client, review it, make corrections wherever required. All the best for your career as a freelance writer.